Afromusing

This is a follow up post on the one tip i posted, others in the diaspora contributed some useful tips for traveling to Kenya and Africa in general. (Thank you!) This post is to meant to highlight their contributions.
Lets start with the obvious: Make sure your passport hasn’t expired. Contact the Kenya Embassy, there are 3 locations, DC, LA and NY. A family member went to the NY office, where the staff was courteous and expedient in providing them with the travel documents they needed! This is unlike the passport blues of last year in DC. Way to go guys!

If you will be going through Britain, Magaidi has a tip for you:

…for those transiting through London, you might want to call the British Consulate, moreso for those changing Airports (eg. Flying into Heathrow and departing from Gatwick) in order to get a temporary VISA. This could save you inconveniences and delays once you get there.

MONEY

Credit cards and cash? Input on this came from several bloggers. Ssembonge said

Amex is only accepted in the US and in establishments worldwide that cater for business travelers. In the US, some places don’t accept Amex.
If going to Kenya carry cash, which can be easily exchanged at the numerous bureaus. You get a better deal in downtown than in tourist hotel and banks. If you have a huge amount you can negotiate the exchange rate up front if you convert it all at once. Since many establishments accept Visa/MC, I usually end up returning with my dollars.

EGM added -

The one thing about using cards is the length of time it takes to process transactions. As late as October this year I saw a payment I made at Java way back in January get posted. Most of the transactions were posted within a week of making them, but about 5 or so took almost 5 months on average to post. So this time I will try and use cash everywhere, resorting to the card only as a last option.

Kikuyu Moja representing Deutschland and ‘Old World’ KT’s chimed in regarding credit cards that have worked just fine…

…my Maestro debit card and Master Card work perfectly well with Barclays.

E-Nyce (could you kindly give me a link to your blog?) - pointed out a very handy tip that Kudrinketh shared over on Bankelele’s . The handy tip from Kudrinketh is:

For all diaspora investors who will be sending tons of money home for IPO investment,i have a money saving tip.DO NOT USE MONEYGRAM OR WESTERN UNION.

I have been preaching this for years yet people still burn money through these sharks.here’s how you send money home for free,with the best rate.Bank of America(BOA) and Barclays bank have an agreement whereby one can use either bank’s ATM for free.so what i do is open a BOA acct in U.S,send the debit card home and whenever i want to send money i simply deposit money in my BOA acct and instruct the recipient to withdraw cash from Barclays ATM.No fees,you get market exchange rates,no hassle,you can get money 24/7.I have been doing this since 1998 and i can say I’ve saved a ton of money

Another money saving tip,y’all know how most banks charge foreign transaction(2-3%) fees when you use your credit card when you travel abroad.well,Capital One credit card waives this fee so you can swipe you card anywhere in the world without extra penalty.

And from Whispering Inn:

Carry only two cards — one debit card for cash and one credit card for purchases. Leave all your other cards behind.

The best option, though, is to open a separate checking account with your bank, transfer a maximum of $1,500 (or however much you’re gonna need for the entire trip) into the account, get one of those debit cards that also function as a credit card attached to it, and carry/use ONLY that one card during your travel. Its safer and easier to keep track of your spending. Leave all your other cards behind.

I’ve also found American Express TCs (Travellers Cheques) to be very convenient.

Write and keep the phone numbers of your bank, VISA/MC, and Amex in a separate pocket from your wallet – in case you lose your wallet.

Keep receipts of all transactions and pore over your statement when you return or online everyday if you have a secure computer. Easier to catch unauthorized transactions.

I’ve found Barclays bank foreign currency counter at Queensway branch the most helpful.

He also added that if you travel to kenya more than twice a year, just keep an account there and use cash from it when there. I second his recommendation to use Barclays, the service i received was pretty good.

PHONES & ACCESORIES

From Ntwiga are two awesome tips, he has a splitter for his laptop btw, that’s another tip you can check out over at his blog.

- sign up for Skype/Vonage or some other internet service for $10-19 or so a month with a new number and forward your calls from your regular number to your new internet service number. Get a head set with a mike and you can then use any PC in Kenya to make calls to the US/rest of the world for free or stupidly low rates. I used this service to call my credit card company’s 800 number for free when they decided to freeze my account.

- buy a cheap used 900Mhz GSM phone like a Nokia 6100/6610 on eBay, take it with you and use it there. Good phones are expensive in Kenya. For comparison purposes, a 6610/6100 costs maybe $40 (Kshs 3500) on ebay vs. $110 (Kshs 8500) in Kenya. A “crackberry” 7100 costs $80 on eBay (Kshs 7000) vs. atleast $250 (Kshs 18000) in Kenya. You can use the phone to check email, blog or even hook up a laptop to the net via GPRS.

For how to connect to the internet using GPRS, we hop on over back to Kikuyu Moja’s post on this.

In order to use GPRS with Safaricom, all you have to do (as a prepaid customer!!!) is to send an empty short message (SMS) to 4777. That’s it!
They will then shortly afterwards send you a confirmation sms and the settings for your GPRS capable (!) phone which you will be asked to save and activate using the following PIN: “1234“. Simple as that.

If the settings can’t be received for whatever reason, but your phone is able to do GPRS, then try the following settings for Safaricom:

APN: safaricom
username: saf
password: data

Do check his site for more on GPRS in Kenya. What i can add for US KT’s - when looking for the data cable that you will need to use with your Quad band/GSM capable phone, buy it from ebay or amazon.com. Radioshack and Best buy are packaging the cable with software and inflating the price, you could have gotten it for $12 but with the software bundl its now $50.

From E-Nyce:

- do not buy power adapters (plastic thingies that allow US cords to plug into Kenyan sockets) in the US - even assuming you can easily find them, they’re cheaper in Kenya! Although JKE aka kikuyumoja might have better perspective on the quality of these. They work fine for me. YMMV…

I second this, the one i took last year burnt out in no time (Jensen), found a decently priced one at walmart $20 for Travelwise international converter set. Lets see if it holds up.

MISC

E-Nyce again

- wanna buy inexpensive gifts for the folks in the Motherland? Go to Walmart if you have ‘em, or better a 99-cents store, to stock up on plenty of low-cost goodies.

- if you’re taking a laptop, load up as much music as you can on it. Not only good to have some comfort-food for yourself, others will be interested in hearing different music. Believe-it-or-not, I got so many Kenyan friends hooked on Trip-Hop and Nu-Soul, sounds they had never heard before. Funny, considering that these genres are heavily influenced by African rhythms.

I think that’s all for now, for those in the US, if you have Time Warner Cable and get BET Jams, saturday nights starting at 11:00PM eastern, you can watch great African videos, from the Soweto Gospel choir, Fela Kuti, Lingala and more. The program is called Soul Of Africa - Cool stuff.

Diaspora Kenyans (KT’s) and Africans getting ready to fly home for the December migration commonly known as Christmas holidays, call your bank or credit card provider and give them your travel dates, especially if you plan on using your debit card to withdraw cash or using your credit card for purchases. This could save you the headache of having your transactions not go through as the bank might be concerned about fraud.

For Kenya, you probably should consider carrying your American Express card too. There was this post by Bankelele from April last year about Amex being available through barclays bank - I would presume then that you could withdraw cash from barclays ATM’s in kenya with ease, there will still be a transaction fee of 2%.

Please chime in if there is more you can add, thanks.

Update: Kenya is still VISA country - Thanks Bankelele.

There is an wonderful story over on worldchanging by Sarah Rich about a billboard in the Alexandria Township in South Africa. This is practical and serves dual purpose - advertising for the bank and providing electricity for the MC Weller Primary School.

It goes without saying that this is a wonderful idea that can be emulated in Kenya, there is no shortage of billboards in Nairobi for sure.

on to the blurb:

…it’s generating power from the sun sufficient to run the electricity for the school’s kitchen. The copy appearing on its surface aptly reads: What if a bank really did give power to the people?

The concept came from a South African duo at the firm Net Work BBDO. The billboard is fitted with ten solar panels, each of which generates 135 watts of power. It will create 5,800 watts of power per light day, or enough to boil eighteen 1-liter kettles simultaneously. For many of MC Weller’s students, the school kitchen is the source of their only daily meal, making it a vitally important operation for keeping the community’s kids healthy and fed.

*AkalaNote:
1. World Aids Day - A documentary on VH1Soul called Tracking the monster will be showing at different times, click here for the TV schedule. Tivo the repeat… Very moving. It features India Arie in Kenya, where she worked with wangeci of KENWA visiting aids orphans in the slums of Kenya. Most touching moment, she played guitar for a musician who was ill, sang beautifully and bowed. She bowed with respect.

I pray for all those who have lost a loved one to this terrible epidemic, and salute those working to provide care to Aids patients, orphans and those educating others about AIDS.

The link above to Kenwa has info on how to donate, in addition it receives funds from The Global fund. The global fund receives money from the product Red campaign . At the very least, consider buying some of the products. Need another reason? The InspiRED T-shirt by Gap is very soft and comfy, plus its made of 100% African cotton.

2. Doing a much needed revamp of the blog..so if it looks kinda weird for a minute, sit tight…

*the register has bootnotes…so i figured…while you are there, dont miss out on BOFH - Bastard Operator from Hell for some great IT humour. BOFH on wikipedia